Benkirane: Morocco’s Ministry of Interior is Unfair during the current electoral campaign

Rabat, Morocco (TMT)- Morocco’s head of the government Abdellilah Benkirane gave yesterday an interview to Spanish international news agency EFE, an interview conducted by Javier Otazu, the head of “EFE Agence Maroc”.

On the sidelines of this interview, Benkirane said that the Moroccan Ministry of Interior is unfair during the election campaign, stressing that “it is the Ministry of Interior’s duty to be fair, but a ghost resides inside it, and from time to time, this ghost presses some of its members to make such gesticulations [unfair behaviors] and we just make do with what we have.”

Javier Otazu: The Moroccan Ministry of Interior has put sticks in your wheels many times. It did not allow you to use a stadium in Marrakech [part of the electoral campaign]. The authorities did intimidate you, and I am using here the word you used in your [party’s] Web page– Do you think that the Ministry of Interior is fair in the electoral campaign?

Abdellilah Benkirane: Don’t you think that what you just said is enough? [to answer yourself the question]

Javier Otazu: I am just asking you.

Abdellilah Benkirane: I will tell you something, it is the Ministry of Interior’s duty to be fair, but a ghost resides inside it, and from time to time, this ghost pressures some of its members to make such gesticulations [unfair behaviors] and we make do with what we have.

Javier Otazu: I like it when you used the expression “we make do with what we have,” don’t you think, as mainstream Moroccans think, you are too much doing with what you have [being too lenient to the Ministry of Interior]?”

Abdellilah Benkirane: The Ministry of Interior in Morocco is not a mundane Ministry.

Javier Otazu: They say it is the mother of Ministries.

Abdellilah Benkirane: Maybe it is no more the mother. But it is a mother that will not withdraw at once. I believe that things are going in the right direction. We went through a long way. Do you think that Hassad [current Moroccan Minister of Interior] is Basri [Moroccan Minister of Interior during Hassan II’s reign], or vice versa. Before everybody was afraid [of Basri]. Before, we used to summon some times a prime minister with his pajamas. There is an evolution. I will tell you something and it may seem odd to you. The best change is the slow one, the one that takes time. If you disrupt things much, stuff will fall over your head. Let’s be rational and move slowly.